Oh, squirrel,
with your pretty paws
and ink-black claws
and eyes of quiet radiance,
you wait as in a trance—
or is it hesitance?
Perchance it is a squirrel’s certainty
that keeps you in the bowers of your tree,
with an acorn cradled in your arms.
Or yet,
is it a thorny penitence
that keeps that acorn for your sins?
Patience, patience… could it be?
The well-trod commerce of civility?
Or is it but a force of will
that, in a look, defiantly,
insists: “You come to me!”
… and yet, you hold that nut
so tightly in your fists.
In the shady garden green
there are many paths unseen,
where, quite by chance—as in a dream—
we meet,
as moon shadows on a silent street,
with nothing in our pockets
and echoes at our feet.
There stands a statue
washed in alabaster light,
half-alive with strange delight,
or is it scorn,
unburdened by an ancient spite?
But when I watch your placid face,
though your heart may race—
no tail dissembles with a swish,
no whisker trembles
with a whisper from your lips.
My heart is like a raging sea;
it tosses ship and ballast free,
and what it wills, I cannot sense or see—
while your spry heart is such a rare device
of delicate telemetry.
But when I spy you there beneath your tree,
and our eyes meet,
there is a secret solace that responds,
that stirs the roaring breakers from their bonds,
though they will never reach your feet.